Ice Lanterns
by lovinglyons
Summary: Elsa is the winter personified and Rapunzel was born of the sun. When Elsa flees the castle after exposing her powers at the ball, she stumbles upon Rapunzel's tower. Elsa continues to be conflicted about her curse but will she find room in her icy heart for the girl hidden in the tower with the mysterious powers? Very Non-Canon. Elsa/Rapunzel
1. Escape

**So, this is my first ever fanfction that I've written more than a hundred words to then decided to trash. This is my first real attempt at writing anything since I was in elementary school aside from school assignments. I don't really have many friends who write so I'm kind of doing this on my own. Any constructive criticism would be 100% welcome. Suggestions for the plot would be helpful too! I have the basic ideas for the plot but it could do with a little extra drama too.**

**I obviously do not own anything. It is all Tangled and Frozen; I own nothing. **

**This chapter takes place right before she fled the castle.**

**Chapter 1: **

_How could I let this happen? I knew something like this would happen... I never should have opened up the gates… _tears were pouring openly down her porcelain face now as she sprinted through the castle corridors. Her eyes went wide and she realized she was lost when she hit a dead end. _Damn it, I don't even remember what the castle looks like. _She has been living within the confines her own room since that fateful night with her sister and the trolls and, could barely recall what her own sister looked like before she saw her at the ball, much less the individual halls of the castle.

_It doesn't matter anymore, _she told herself_. You can never come back here now. Not after what just happened. _Images flashed through her brain. She was just trying to warn the Wesleton guards when ice shot out and froze the stone underneath them. She flinched when the shocked faces of her people turned to fear. Fear of her.

She turned and ran down the hall, searching desperately for one door she could remember that she and Anna used to use to sneak out of the castle. Her head whipped around as a door crash open behind her and she felt panic flood her senses when she saw half a dozen guards come barreling into the corridor. _Why are my guardsmen chasing me? _She spun on her heel and sprinted, using the new adrenaline that was pouring into her veins to propel her down the hall.

"Queen Elsa!" The guardsmen continued stampeding after her, "please wait!" The only response was the dark purple cape of the queen flitting out of sight around a corner. It wasn't difficult to track the queen, she left a trail of ice in her wake, but keeping up with her was a different issue entirely. What the queen had assumed was simply adrenaline had actually been her own frosty powers, propelling her forward and coating the hall in a layer of dangerous ice.

_Why cant they just let me go, can't they see I'll only hurt them?_ She continued her race though the castle until she found the door she'd been searching for: the frame had been covered in tiny snowflakes she and her sister had painted onto it during their early childhood. She was momentarily distracted by the memory of her sister laughing and painting simple, sloppy snowflakes whilst Elsa had giggled at her sisters' antics as she painted her own intricate, elegant flakes.

She was pulled out of her flashback quickly when she heard the guards, who must have just been on the next hall. When she glanced back and saw the trail of ice she had left in her wake, she audibly gasped and almost fell at the crushing guilt, afraid she might have hurt someone.

_That's how they're still following me... _She looked down the hall and saw that it would be painfully obvious that she had gone though the door that she was now stopped in front of if she didn't do something about it. She brought her hands up and looked at them as if they weren't her own before closing her eyes and flicking her wrists toward the unfrozen hallway. She let out a soft cry when she heard the distinctive crackle of ice forming. She never looked to see her handiwork but turned to the snowflake door and pulled it open, rushed though, and it slammed shut just as she heard what must have been the guards footsteps coming around the corner.

She almost allowed herself to rest against the door when she looked around the small passageway, only large enough for one person, or two small children as she and her sister had come to discover. Her large, blue eyes frantically taking in the familiar corridor, memories of giggling with her sister and running through this small tunnel for completely different reasons. _Stop, conceal. Don't feel. You can't stop now; you've hurt enough people. Just run. _

And she ran, allowing her ice to encase the hallway around her, obstructing her view of the walls, which Anna had insisted they paint. She raced until she hit stopped just short of a large, dark wooded door.

_This is new_. When she last came through this hall, before she almost killed her sister, the door had been worn down and barley could hold itself up, but it seemed that it had been replaced in the time since then. Elsa pushed against the door but saw quickly that it would not be budging without a key.

_Or maybe I can… _A shaky, white hand reached out and ghosted over the lock. She allowed the familiar flow of a bitter chill that was always just below the surface to seep through a single digit and concentrated on keeping a small stream. Frost grew from where her index finger was resting lightly on the handle and she heard what much have been the lock breaking inside the door. It then swung open for her when she pressed against it with just one hand.

She stumbled out of the door and found herself just outside of the castle at last but not quite alone yet. There seemed to be a small figure sort of jogging along the exterior, not looking in front of it but around as if searching for something. When it turned towards Elsa, it seemed to have found what it was looking for, based on the gasp that drifted up to meet the new Queen.

"Elsa, Is that you?"

She never got a response because a moment later, silver hair was streaking down the path, followed closely by the strawberry blonde.

"Please! Stop running; you down have to shut me out! Let me help you Elsa! We can fix this! You don't have to do this, everything will be fine, just stop running!" Elsa didn't hesitate. The moment she had seen her sister, panic erupted inside the Queen. _Conceal. Don't feel. Conceal. Don't feel. You can't loose control with her so close. _

"Anna, just get away from me! I don't want to hurt you..." Elsa doubled her speed and cut to her left, hoping to loose her sister by getting off the path. Anna seemed to be slowed down a bit, but still continued to try and convince Elsa to stop. Elsa couldn't have heard her sister over the pounding of blood in her ears if she had actually been listening.

The older sister turned her head to look behind her when she heard Anna stop shouting and saw the princess had stopped dead and was looking around her feet and back up at the queen with a look somewhere between awe and frustration. Elsa slowed and looked down in confusion when she saw the ice she was now gliding across. She turned around and gaped at the ice she had apparently created without realizing she even needed it; She was standing on the water in the middle of the bay.

_I guess that was the last of my control, _she thought while hardly holding back a sob.She turned away from her sister and saw where the water on the other side met some dense looking tree. _I can't hurt anyone if there's no one to hurt... _ She took on one last shaky breath and then sped off towards the trees on the opposite side of the bay. _Goodbye, Arendelle. Take care of my sister. _Tears leaked out from the corners of her eyes and froze the instant they escaped the warmth and touched her icy skin.

_ Conceal. Don't feel. Now they all know._

**Like I said, I haven't written in years so I need all the help I can get! Please leave reviews with suggestions or comments! **

**Next chapter I want to switch the focus to just Rapunzel and her mother's relationship. I'm not entirely sure what all to include but it wont be long and I'm considering switching to Elsa for when she finds the tower. Please, please, please comment and help! **


	2. Storm

**If you're still with me on this story, thank you so much for your support **

**The first chapter was probably confusing and dull because of the lack of dialog but that will be fixed later when there are more interactions between the characters. Please leave reviews to let me know what you think of this chapter! Please excuse all my grammar and spelling mistakes, I'm awful at it!**

**I own nothing; it's all Frozen and Tangled.**

**Switching to Rapunzel for a bit! Enjoy!**

**Chapter 2:**

"Rapunzel! Let down your haaiiirrrrr!" The woman's piercing trill startled the blonde out of the nap she hadn't realized she'd fallen into. _Shit, is it really that time? _She clumsily dashed to the window and a quick glance at the stand-up mirror confirmed that she looked vaguely presentable but she wondered if her mother would still be able to tell that she'd been asleep.

"Coming, Mother!" Rapunzel gathered a pile of blonde tresses and flung them out the window. She caught the stream of gold at just the right length and had it set up in the usual pulley system before her hair even reached the woman on the ground. "Go hide, Pascal. Come back when she leaves." The little chameleon, which she'd come to love, scuttled out from the blankets where it had curled up to nap with this best friend earlier. He escaped through a hole he'd found between some wooden beams in the ceiling. He'd just get some sun and maybe catch himself a little diner while he waited for the older woman to leave.

She waited till she felt a familiar weight pull at the hair in her hand before methodically hoisting her mother up the length of the tower. Since she'd been doing this for years, pulling the grown woman up the tall tower was practically effortlessly, even though Rapunzel herself was small set. She could tell by the added weight that her mother had brought something back with her, likely something for Rapunzel to cook for them with.

_Or she's put on a few pounds since this morning, _she giggled to herself at her little joke. The little grin that had worked its way onto her face at her joke drooped a bit when she saw her mothers' hair had a few new gray streaks in it and her skin had gotten frailer. _I suppose she'll need me to sing to her._

Rapunzel didn't really mind when her mother needed her to sing for her; Sometimes the blonde even enjoyed it. It gave her a chance to explore and exercise the only part of her that she deemed noteworthy or significant. Sometimes, when she sang for her mother, she'd get sudden feelings that she couldn't explain or understand. Even rarer than the strange feelings though, she could get visions. She couldn't really quite count them as visions she decided though, they were more of glimpses of hazy things, almost like a very distant memory.

"Oh darling, you simply won't believe the day I've had." _Step one: listen to trivial details about my mothers more important life._ She has a system. So she listened dutifully whilst her mother discussed about how the merchants she had bought the groceries from tried to sell her the goods for an "outlandish" price. While her mother talked, she moved to prepare the next meal, occasionally offering an "oh wow" or "I see" where it seemed polite.

"You know you really should consider a different color for your dresses. I don't think that shade suits you." _Step two: take her insults. _That's something Rapunzel had come to be a professional at. It was easy to tune them out for a few months when the comments had first started. After it became clear that they were going to be a part of the new routine, Rapunzel started to listen to the little things her mother would say. She couldn't argue that mother was wrong; after all, _she_ was the brave one who could handle the "real world."

"Have you been exercising like I told you to? It looks like your putting on some weight." The black haired woman accentuated this by poking Rapunzels' stomach and laughing. "Oh, my flower, you do take things too seriously. Have you finished with lunch yet? Mother is getting hungry."

"It's almost finished. Why don't you go sit down? I'll bring it to you at the table."

"Oh, very well. Just hurry up, I don't have all day you know."

"Yes, Mother."

They ate a quiet lunch while her mother looked around as if extremely bored and Rapunzel tried to be small and inconspicuous. Rapunzel finished her meal and took the dishes to where they'd wait till her mother left to be washed, the started walking back to the table when the window shutters were flung open by a strong, snowy wind. The blonde was startled by the sudden movement and tripped over her own hair, crashing to the floor.

"Rapunzel, go shut the damn window!" Her mother had pulled the hood of her cloak over her hair but it had already gotten wet from sleet.

"Sorry! I'll get it!" She expertly detangled herself from the long, blonde tresses and jumped to the window. It took a few moments to fight the wind for dominance over the shutters but she finally got the latch to hook. "Whew, that's some weird weather for summer! What do you think it is, Mother?" Rapunzel turned to the dark haired woman and immediately panicked over the dark expression that had taken over her mothers face, wondering if she said something wrong again; she had a knack for doing that.

"There is strange magic going on out there, Rapunzel. It isn't like your gift; it's sorcery. Over in Arendelle, their queen was a sorceress right under their noses. I've heard she sacrificed people to get the powers she has now. Her own sister went after her against her counsels' advice and the princess still hasn't returned. Everyone assumes her witch sister must have taken her though. Either way, things are becoming unstable there. I tell you this so you know how dangerous it is out there. There are still very bad people and I'm not ready to lose you to them. I know you still want to see the lights," Rapunzels' eyes lit up when she said this," but we aren't ready yet. Maybe after all this has washed over." Her mother had stood up and walked over to Rapunzel. She took the blondes hands and mustered up all the caring she could into her eyes. "Maybe one day."

"I understand. Thank you, Mother." The blonde moved and embraced the older woman.

"I'll be staying in Arendelle so I can keep an eye on things for the next few days. I brought enough food and firewood to last you until I get back. You need to be extra careful about things, though you shouldn't worry. I'll be back before you even notice." She bent and kissed the girl's forehead. "Will you sing to me before I leave? It'll be long time to be without you and I'll need the extra boost."

"Of course, Mother."

"I love you, my flower."

"I love you more, mother."

"I love you most."

* * *

Light was barely filtering in through the snow covered trees down to the forest floor where the young queen stirred awake. Large, blue eyes flitted around the trees as the events of the day prior came back to her.

"It really happened then. Maybe it's for the best that I just—" her breath caught them she heard a branch snap somewhere behind her. _I need to be alone. I can hurt people right now. _She shakily got to her feet as quietly as she could while keeping her eyes on the trees where she thought she heard the noise. She started to turn and walk away from she heard the distinctive crunch of leaves to her left. She spun around to face it realizing that either whoever was out there was very, very fast and sneaky, or there was more than one.

_People can't move like that. It must be some animal. _The idea let her relax. It was probably a fox out scavenging or a bird. Elsa looked around at the trees with less alarm now and decided to travel North for a while. She began her journey with heavy steps as she couldn't get her mind away from what she was running from. Her thoughts traveled back to her sister and the look of panic on her face along with something that must have been disgust, Elsa assumed. _After all, I'm a monster._

*SNAP*

Elsa stood frozen in place, _a fox wouldn't have followed me, would it? _Her question was answered when she heard a low growl coming up from some shrubs about three yards to her right, making her breath catch in her chest. Elsa stood solid and still as her ice and watched as the sneering snout of a forest wolf slowly protruded from the bush. Its glowing, yellow eyes followed and one large, ferocious looking clawed paw stepped forward as it started its slow stalk toward the paralyzed silver haired girl.

The wolf, only a couple yards from her now, snapped its jaws as if in anticipation for the meal to come, and in doing so, jarred the young queen out of the stupor she'd been stuck in. Elsa glanced around trying to find an escape. The broken eye contact with the canine seemed to mean submission to it and it snarled. Elsa saw the distinctive coiling of muscles in its legs as it sunk back into the ground and she saw what it was preparing for. Elsa never saw it pounce because she was running now. With the fear that was coursing though her veins she felt she could hardly keep herself from turning the snow around her into solid ice, though in the back of her mind she thought she felt the wind pick up.

Elsa could hear the wolfs' oversized paws pounding against the grass behind her as she darted between trees. Her breath made a line of fog while she tried desperately to suck in the much-needed oxygen. The temperature around her dropped another ten degrees when she heard the wolf behind her howl in indignation and her powers started to slip. _Don't feel! Don't feel! Don't feel!_

Just as she thought the mutt behind her was almost upon her, the dense forest opened up into a lush green meadow that seemed to have been untouched by the storm Elsa had created the night before. Elsa came bounding into the perfect scenery and almost let herself close her eyes as she watched the perfect, luminous landscape frost over into another tundra, like a perfect view of the cold in herself.

Suddenly, the wolf that had been chasing her leapt up and snapped at her cape. The neckline of the cloak jerked her to the ground and she looked up into the yellow, murderous eyes of her chaser. She kicked out at her attacker and caught the side of its mouth, releasing her cloak but enraging the wolf past its normal predatory instincts. Elsa bolted up to her feet but knew she couldn't outrun it now. The beast's eyes locked with hers and she watched it sink back with the same coiling of muscles. _Is this is? _

Elsa closed her eyes just as the wild beast leapt forward and she felt the flesh of her thigh shredding under it's monstrous claw and cried out in fear and pain as she fell to the icy ground. As she screamed she felt her powers seem to take a mind of their own and a surge of bitter cold ripped out from her. Her scream died in her throat when she didn't feel the wolf attack again. _What are you doing? Just get it over with already._

She listened for the crunching of frost under the wolf's paws but she heard nothing. Nothing besides the blood pounding in her ears and her own quick breathing. Not even the wolfs' breath…

One blue eye peaked open, expecting to see that the fearsome wolf must have run for some reason, but when she opened her eyes, she saw the most gruesome image she'd ever witnessed. Less than a foot away from her, huge icicles had sprung from the ground and were holding the wolf up above her head. One frozen spear had impaled the wolf's throat while three more had split though his torso and were held it suspended that way, blood dripping down the ice.

"No, no, I cant hav—" her voice broke off as she stared wide eyed at the grotesque scene before her. _I just killed it. I lost control and killed it_. A harsh sob escaped her throat and tears flooded down her face as she felt nausea well up from her stomach. She dragged herself away from the gory scene and was sick and just shook her head till she couldn't take being there anymore.

_Why can't I look at it? I'm the monster who killed it; I deserve to feel this. _She shakily stood to her feet and willed herself look at it but another glance as the now crimson ice only made her stumble back. She gasped as she felt herself falling and reached behind her to where a blanket of ivy covered the face of some stone, then cried out as the her hand went through the ivy and she fell behind the curtain into a cave.

"What the hell?" she reached up and held some of the ivy in her hand, though it had a layer of frost from when she fell. She looked around from where she lay in confusion and moved to stand up when she felt an excruciating reminder from her leg that the wolf had managed to cut her too. She gasped at the intrusion of pain and blinked away tears.

_Damn. How am I going to get to… _she realized she didn't really have a place to go. _Where do I go now?_

Her thigh pulled her out of her thoughts again and she saw that blood had seeped onto the dirt under her. There were a few minor cuts all around one thick laceration. She couldn't tell how deep it was, only that it was bleeding allot.

_At least I'm human enough to bleed, _she thought and chuckled to herself beginning to feel lightheaded.

**At first I had more planned for this chapter but then when I wrote that last line, I felt a kind of finality that I got on the last chapter and decided to just hold onto the plans for the next chapter. That means you get the next one soon though! **

**If you know Tangled, you know that Elsa is almost to the tower so I'm pretty excited about that. I know all this continual drama is probably exhausting but I'm still very new to writing so just try and keep with me. Let me know what you think of this chapter please! **

**I'll put the next chapter up soon. **


	3. Fear

**Sorry this chapter took longer than the others, trying to write while battling a particularly difficult bout of what I believe to be my reoccurring anemia. I'll be able to write the rest of the chapter more quickly. **

**If you haven't already figured it out, they aren't going to be cousins in this story. **

**I'm just kind of writing on the fly with this one, but it should be fine. Leave reviews please so I know what you guys like; the last reviews I got were extremely helpful and very encouraging! And thank you to one of my best friends, Kaden, for helping me with the final step in taking this chapter up a level at key parts and your super magical ability to fix all my horrid grammar!**

**Keep in mind that Elsa is magic so just attribute any mistakes that are made with how the injury would actually affect someone. **

**Chapter 3:**

Elsa glanced back around at the cave. _What do I do now? _She was starting to panic at the way her head was spinning, knowing that it was surely a sign that she was loosing too much blood. She looked down at her thigh, but she'd only been taught on politics and how to run the kingdom by her tutors and knew nothing about how to handle these kinds of situations. She'd been sheltered in her room until yesterday and likely wouldn't even know what blood looked like if it weren't for her sister Anna being so clumsy. Even then, she'd never seen blood flow like it was now. She couldn't tell whether to panic over the fact that there seemed to be a fog coming over her brain.

_I'm losing too much blood… _Her white hands hovered over the throbbing wound, not sure how to handle it; she was hardly holding back tears over how badly it was burning. _Maybe I can just stop the flow for now. I'll likely die though… Maybe I shouldn't keep prolonging my life… All I do is hurt… Maybe it's a sign… _Even as she thought this, she knew that her drive to survive wouldn't be accepted so she knew she didn't truly believe that she could just allow herself to die like this. _What would mother and father think of me if they knew I was thinking like that… _They always fought to keep her from becoming a danger to anyone.

She glided her fingers across where the flesh was torn and audibly sighed as ice spread over the area, blocking the flow. She eased the burn that had roared to life after the shock from seeing the goriness of the wolf after the fight. When she finished covering the area in frost, she looked back at the curtain of ivy she'd fallen though. She accidentally caught a glimpse of darkened gray fur when the wind blew.

_Definitely not going back that way, _she thought with a shudder while shuffling back a few inches. She turned and looked to the farthest end of the tunnel. Though, it was hardly a tunnel, she decided, since it was only 20 feet long or so and opened up after that. Elsa couldn't quite see what was out there, because it was so dark in the cave, the sunlight outside seemed amplified, just leaving the entrance impossibly bright.

_There's really no point in waiting. _With that thought, Elsa shifted over to where she leaned on the wall of the cave and pushed up off the ground, trying awkwardly to get into a standing position. She managed to get vertical but when she started to put weight on her injured right leg, fresh tears clouded her vision and flowed down her face. _SHIT! What do I do now? _Her head swiveled around looking for something that could possibly act as a crutch to help her walk, but she found that the floor was completely bare.

She leaned back against the cool tunnel wall and let out a discouraged sigh. _I guess this is just going to be an uphill battle. How am I going to get myself out of this damned tunnel_? I need something to help me walk like a crutch or something. _Or something… made of ice? _She glanced around out of habit, feeling like she was thinking of something unholy when she considered using her powers on purpose.

_I'm alone. I can't hurt anyone so would it really be so bad if I just did this one thing? _In the back of her mind, she knew the only reason she was even considering that option was because of the thick cloud that seemed to have taken residence in her mind before she stopped the flow of blood that was draining her.

_Now or never. _She acted before she could let herself really comprehend what she was doing. She closed her hand into a fist and concentrated on the creation of ice from the water in the air, feeling the individual droplets lower to a freezing temperature. She focused the frozen particles in though her fingers and bonded them together till she had a small gem-like concentration of the crystals that held firmly in her first. Pouring more willower into the process, she repeated it over and over until a perfectly cylindrical staff shot down and held its form. She could practically hear it humming. Alive to her senses, solid, and ready to serve its creator.

The whole process actually took around four seconds.

Elsa looked at her new creation and subtly nodded to herself. _This will do fine. _She used a similar process and split the top of it so that it would fit underneath her arm and took her first step forward. There was still a harsh pain that made her see stars but she could stumble fine.

Without letting herself look back at the mutilation behind her, she took a wobbly step forward. _This is okay; I can handle this. _She concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. When she was a step outside the cave, she glanced up and almost fell flat on her face when she readjusted to the light. _What the hell? _She thought.

She gasped. Her eyes were as round as saucers as she gaped at the sight in front of her. She'd found herself in a valley between two faces of a mountain. The whole area seemed to be untouched by the blizzard that had been raging though Arendelle. It was covered in lush, green grass with a splattering of wildflowers springing up. A waterfall gushed from a cave above the valley into a spring that flowed though the rock pit.

As lovely as the place was, Elsa barely noticed the scenery because all she could look at was the looming 50-foot tower. It had brown stones that were half covered in a white reinforcing substance that seemed to have chipped away as plant life grew over it. On top of the tower was a tree house style space that would likely be a room. Purple shingles covered the roof that swirled up toward the sky in a cylindrical prism.

_Damn… _Elsa tried to take in its beauty but she was so disoriented that she couldn't even comprehend what she was seeing. She wasn't alone out here. She started to see black at the edges of her vision and stumbled forward. _I need help; maybe someone here can help me_. She wasn't thinking straight but it seemed like the only option now. She was less than three yards from the base of the tower when she felt her knees start to wobble.

_No! I can't stop now_. She gasped when her ice crutch fell out from under her. She crumpled to the earth. Her hair fell out of it's normally stick bun and her bangs fell over in front of her eyes. She didn't have the energy to reach up and swipe them back. Her breath was extremely labored, and she couldn't feel the pain in her leg anymore. She knew it wasn't a good thing. She breathed out a harsh sob of defeat and fell deep into unconsciousness.

"Well, Pascal, now that mother is gone, we have the place to ourselves, and we don't have to worry about you getting caught now!" The reptile rolled his eyes and busied himself with seeing how many patterns he could create across his scales.

"You know, when was the last time we played hide and seek? I almost didn't catch you that last time!" Pascal knew just as well as she did that they'd played it this morning, and she was just ignoring the fact that she wouldn't leave the tower even with her mother gone. He would be patient. He was trying a new strategy of just simply waiting for the right opportunity to show her the world outside the tower. He had never seen any other humans besides Rapunzel and her mother, but he'd heard enough from the older woman to know to be wary of the outside world. He did sometime think her mother was hiding something.

Instead of responding with the affirmative to her invitation, he turned away from her and scuttled a few feet before continuing his color changing practices. "Oh, come on, Pascal! Just a few games, for me?" Pascal paused for a moment then turned around and nodded, causing the excited blonde to squeal and run out of the room. The Chameleon knew she was going to go count, just as they always had in her bedroom. He scuttled over behind some dishes to go hide. He waited patiently till Rapunzel had come bounding out of her upstairs room. He rolled his eyes again when he heard her sing out, "Ready or not! Here I come!" He watched from his position behind a teacup as she searched through the bookshelves. When he saw her move to the wardrobe, he decided hiding in the dishes would be too obvious. He breathed a little sigh and decided to make this a little more interesting.

Watching her closely, he moved out from the dishes and scuttled along the wall until he reached the window and scampered though the cracked shutters. "I heard you, I know you moved! That's cheating and you know it!" The Chameleon just let out a little chuckle at it and pinned himself to a potted plant while changing its colors to blend in, just for good measure.

He took in a few breaths to calm his nerves. Rapunzel surely wouldn't be able to find him, or at the least not as quickly as she usually did. He heard the familiar crashing of dishes and a startled, "OOPS!" from inside and chuckled again. He looked out across the same rock pit, which they'd lived since he'd found Rapunzel when she was just a preteen. She was seventeen now though, almost eighteen actually, a woman by most measures, even though she certainly had her childish antics. But really, who wants to grow up anyways?

As Pascal reflected on this, he looked around at the green plant life all around him. He found it weird that even with all the ice and snow recently, the meadow they lived in never was anything less than absolutely radiant. Rapunzel had told him that it was because of her gift. She said that Mother told her that she got her gift from the sun. The plants here just fed off her power, but she said she never felt her power being drained.

He looked down at the flowers at the bottom of the tower and almost fell over the edge of the windowsill at what he saw. No, not what, but who. A woman was lying at the bottom, half covered in frost.

"Ha! I found you! You should see the look on your… What's wrong Pascal?" Rapunzel looked at the Chameleon who now was pulling at her dress and squeaking like he was trying urgently to tell her something. "Pascal, slow down, I can't understand you when you talk like that!" The reptile let out one more frustrated squeal before he let go of her and scrambled up the wall to the window and pointed animatedly outside with his tail.

"I don't understand, buddy. You know you can go if you need to leave." She was looking at Pascal like he was a chicken with his head cut off. He just gestured more strongly with his tail and she could see he was getting desperate so she walked over to the window and looked out.

"I don't see anythi- Oh my god!"

**;) Sorry to leave you like that but I couldn't resist. Hope you can put two and two together to see what's going on. **

**I wrote this chapter in the middle of an anemic episode, like I said, so don't judge too bad. I just wanted to get it out there faster. **

**Please leave reviews so I know how to write future chapters! **


	4. Liberation

**I'm sorry it's taken me all this time to update. I've written more a few times but the computer I was using was extremely unrealizable and had a tendency to freeze up for hours then delete whatever I wrote. Problem has been solved now so things should start running a bit more smoothly. **

**Writing this chapter honestly gave me buckets anxiety because I started looking at the views it was getting and it made me too scared to write before I had enough encouragement from you beautiful people on this site to get me past that. **

**Every review and PM helped me. So thank you, my lovelies **

**Chapter 4: Liberation**

Rapunzel stood frozen, mouth agape and eyes round as saucers. She was leaning over the edge of the window. Her nails dug into the wooded railing as she tried to comprehend the sight below. For the first time, she was completely speechless. All she could do was stare down at the bottom of the tower where Pascal had pointed to and attempt to grasp the reality of what was happening. But surely this couldn't be real, because at the bottom of the tower… was a person. She just continued her zombie like stare out the window while Pascal desperately tried to break her out of her apparent shock. He crawled in front of her and squealed and pulled her hair but his efforts were fruitless as she gazed, glassy eyed, out the window.

_Desperate times call for desperate measures… _Pascal had gotten a good view of the figure on the ground and had seen the red liquid that was seeping out of the figures obviously grievous wounds and onto the ground. The girl didn't have time for Rapunzel to freak out right now.

He crawled up the Rapunzel's arm and settled on her shoulder. This might be cruel, but it was the only way he knew for sure that she'd break out of the her ill-timed stupor. The chameleon dropped its jaw and sent out a quick prayer to whatever reptilian gods were listening before shooting its tongue into the blonde's ear.

There was a moment of stillness before the feeling registered with Rapunzel. She screamed at the slimy wetness in her ear before falling back off the window and onto the floor of the tower where she rubbed at her ear. Pascal had leapt from her shoulder and scurried over to where she lay squirming, but stayed out of arm's length, just in case.

"_PASCAL!_ Gosh! You know I hate it when you do that!" She propped herself up on an elbow and scowled at the chameleon for a moment before she remembered what she had just seen. Pascal saw shock jolt into her eyes till it was substituted in an instant by anxiety. "I'm just dreaming right? I mean, I didn't just see what I thought I saw… right? That would be crazy! Ha, this is all just a really weird dream." She straightened up and sat cross-legged on the floor. "You know what? I bet I never woke up from that nap I took earlier and Mother will come calling my name any moment now. Yep, that was all just a crazy dream!" She looked over to Pascal now with a crooked grin painted across her face like she could really hear how crazy that sounded. Pascal let out a slight scoff and scudded back to the window where he looked down at the woman who lay on the grass.

Rapunzel reached out and scooped the small creature up in two hands and held him in front of her face with a hopeful grin pulled over her face. Pascal just let out a deep sigh and shook his head once. The grin slid off her face with a shaky exhale.

"Alright, this… this isn't so bad… maybe, whoever it was left? Yeah, that's it." She shakily pushed herself off the ground and set Pascal on her shoulder. Rapunzel drew in a quick breath to steady herself and set her shoulders before taking the distance to the window in three long strides.

Her confidence faltered, however, when she was a few inches from the edge. The blond hesitated with her hand just an inch away from the window frame. Thin eyebrows pulled together in worry and she drew her hand back, cradling it against her chest with the other. "I can't- OW!" Pascal yanked a claw full of hair down and towards the window. Rapunzel lurched forward at the pain and caught herself slightly bent over the railing of the window. Her pain was forgotten in an instant when she looked down at the figure lying on the ground.

She knew she didn't have a choice now; it would be to go against her very nature to ignore this girl who was in need. She couldn't even entertain the thought of turning away from this when she saw how the grass around her legs had become wet with blood.

Rapunzel squared her shoulders and jutted out her chin before she looked away from the woman and started to look around the room with a fierce determination. She knew she couldn't use the usual pulley system that worked with her mother because the girl on the ground was obviously unconscious and running out of time. Rapunzel's gaze swept over the room before landing on the loose stone she'd found all those years ago.

Her mother had been away at some kind of funeral in Arendelle for the weekend a few years back and she'd been bored out of her mind and decided to do some deep cleaning to hopefully butter her mother up to asking her about the floating lights. When she'd taken out some old rags and scrubbed between the tiles on the floor, she'd been panic stricken as the grout crumbled under her touch. The fear didn't last long before her curiosity took over and she'd found the hidden stairs to the base of the tower (she assumed, having not ventured down herself).

Now, she didn't have time to worry about the fear that washed over the back of her mind and accepted the adrenaline as it pushed back against the anxiety. She didn't have time to worry about herself while she was so obviously needed.

Her thin, dainty fingers had difficulty finding their purchase on the stone but she pulled it up with little effort, having hard muscles formed through years of exercises she'd found in books her mother brought for her. Rapunzel slid down through the hole where the tile used to be before she gave herself a chance to think about she was doing. She placed one hand on the wall to her left as she began her decent. The only light that was provided was from the hole above her and a few cracks between the stones of the walls, but it was enough to guide her down. The train of blond hair followed her down and she gathered a few armfuls of the silky tresses to keep it from getting caught up in her feet.

Pascal saw her disappear down the hole and watched for a moment in disbelief that Rapunzel might finally be taking her first step out of the tower. He rushed after her and crawled up the trail of blond hair that followed her. Rapunzel continued her steady decent and squinted as the light grew fainter while she followed the spiraling staircase.

When she decided that the tunnel couldn't possibly go any further, her foot landed on damp stone and then next step she took was on even land. Her heartbeat jumped in her chest and she felt the walls till her hands found where the stones were smaller than the rest of the wall and didn't have anything to seal them together. She braced her palm against one of the smaller stones and pushed against it until she felt it give out and fall.

Without giving herself a chance to really think about what was about to happen and running purely on instinct, she started pushing the stones back with all the strength she'd accumulated from pulling her mother into the tower every day. She kept pushing at the stones and they fell back one by one till she decided that this wasn't fast enough and that poor girl needed her. She dropped to her knees and searched till her eyes fell on the largest of the looser stones.

Rapunzel placed her hands, now red from the rough surface of the stones, on the rock she'd chosen and pushed until she felt a little give and then sprang back away from the wall. As the larger stone fell, all the smaller ones above it gave out with it. What was left was a gap big enough for her to fit through with easy. It was now, with a clear view of the ground that she'd never been this close to, which she hesitated, staring out the gap in the stones into the grass.

Pascal sensed her pause and scurried over to stand on top of the stones and in her line of sight. They locked their gaze and his eyes bore into hers with all the confidence and support he could muster before he nodded his head once and turned around.

Rapunzel watched as the little green chameleon disappeared behind the stones and reappeared a moment later in the grass where she could see.

She closed her eyes and drew in a shaky breath before she sprang forth in a surge of motion and shot through the breach in the stones. She landed a moment later on the balls of her feet and absorbed the shock with one hand pressed down into the grass.

_Grass…_ She straightened up and spread her toes out in the lush, green blades.

"Huh! It was softer than I expected!" Her exclamation startled Pascal, though he wasn't surprised; the blond was always such a spaz and hard to keep on track. He would have let her explore this new world, but they came out here for a reason, the same reason which was possibly dead or very close to it at this point.

Pascal squealed, loud as he could muster, and her head swiveled over to him but her eyes went past him as she caught sight of the red soaked ground that was currently occupying the second human she'd ever seen. A gasp escaped her and fear flooded her senses when all the warnings her mother had said over the years snaked through her mind.

_No, I don't have time to be afraid: she needs me_.

There was a fog over her mind.

_Am I dead? _No, she could feel each shuddering breath she took. _Not yet_. Lidded eyes opened and she caught a fuzzy glimpse of her own breath fogging in front of her in the apparently warm air. In the state she was in, she didn't even notice how the temperature had risen since she'd lost conciseness.

As she faded back into the smothering darkness, she though she heard a crumbling sound somewhere around where she lay and then the soft padding of bare feet in grass.

**Sorry this chapter didn't have very much dialog, I hope to fix that as I get into the interaction between Elsa and Rapunzel.**

**If the urge hits you, leave a review. If it doesn't, leave me one anyways ;) **


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